A Dosage of Romance
By KC Ng
Since the SARS outbreak, the general sentiment of the people had been down. Like a dark and gloomy cloud, it gathers and clusters around, waiting to pour, and thunder, waiting to strike. We wait patiently, for the storm to pass away, fearing that the thunder could strike us, staying inside our house to shelter ourselves from the ferocity of the storm. Hoping that we can see the sunny days ahead. Helpless, we can only wait.
Remedies for the SARS is far from near and we are from happy.
Our daily routines have been complicated, more hygienic perhaps. Our fashion attire also has to make way for a face-mask.
While, the remedy for SARS is still being researched, the remedy to lift us up from this gloomy state has been found. That is a dose of romance.
A proper dosage of romance could make you feel joy in these days of gloominess, makes you divert your energy to something else other than reading the headlines and searching for the latest SARS statistics Instead we divert our energy into searching for the right movies to watch at home, the right clothes to dress and of course a short intensive course on those classic jokes that can help us through those emergency moments. Suddenly, life seemed so packed, so full of colors and vibrant with movements. All our thoughts are channeled away from the negative into the
positive side.
At the same time, the proper dosage will boost up your energy level, couples are known to have endless energy. Couples can just talk on the phone from dusk till dawn and from dawn till dusk and they don't feel tired after that. They can start off with breakfast, early dim sum before setting off to some theme park or shopping mall, walked all day and could still settle for a late night movie. After that, a trip to Bangsar or Sri Hartamas to do some clubbing, showing off the latest
Shakira moves or moving the hips like Ricky Martin. All done in a single day though more often than not it does overlaps to the next dawn. Some of us may be eating pills as energy booster, but as I said romance could also do the job equally well.
Of course, things are easier said than done, how could you just find romance out of thin air, that is
impossible as you and I know it. Some of us could resort into blind dates, classified and also your
who-and- who, who knows someone who is not married yet. hoping that it would be a match
made in heaven, but a wrong move in this romance area could find you off track and you could be worse off from getting SARS, yes one wrong move and you are one step from hell. Therefore, a safe and effective method of getting this dosage of romance is thru “synthetic romance”.
“Synthetic romance” like the namesake means that the romance element is not the real thing but you get the same feeling like other love-birds do. It is something like virtual romance, it allows you to experience love just like the real thing, you will feel the joy and the energy booster effect, the turbulence and the mixtures of emotions and all the roller-coaster rides.
Synthetic romance can be obtained through books, like many Mills and Boons fiction, they offer synthetic romance to those teenagers whom their parents forbid them to date at their early age.
As, we grow older, our vocabulary expand, so does our power of imagination, therefore, we graduate from the Mills and Boons classics and venture into Danille Steel, Jilly Copper and Judith Michael's books.
However, some of us are less fortunate, we are too lazy to read and our minds lack the imagination to equip us with the visual experience while reading the romance fiction. Therefore, for this segment of people, we need to offer them romantic movies, which give them the plot, the audio and the visual.
Notice, that most movies are done in a romantic comedy combination and not in a romantic- tragedy combination, this makes sense, because the main essence for us to watch is to erode the feeling of sadness inside us, therefore the double dosage of romance and laughter make a good weapon. As they said, laughter is a good medicine, but what they did not tell you was a dosage of romance is equally good.
However, note that Titanic was an exception, it was romantic-tragedy type but yet it did so well.
This was because the romantic scenes left a deep impact on the audience minds, that made them
immune to the tragedy part. Hence, most people had to go to watch it for the second time, as most felt a bit blur, first time around. This explain why it did so well in the box-office.
Note that, not only do you need good movies, you also need good songs as well, that is good love songs. Love movies can only sustain you for a short period of time, that is during the movie and after the movie when you are discussing the movie with your friends. That is why people watch a movie twice if they feel that they don't have enough dosage. It is like taking Panadol, you take another one when you feel that there is still some slight headache.
Love songs come in, in the form of antibiotics or vitamins, they complement the Pananols that we
have taken. It is too time consuming for us to watch the movie over and over again. We still have over daily routine like work. Therefore, with songs in the format of CDs and tapes, we can listen while we go to work, at work and hum in the bathroom. Just like, vitamins, after you eat it, it stays in your body and helps you boost your energy. Therefore, there is always a demand for
love songs, you will notice that most love songs albums contain the songs that we already have.
But it is packaged differently, therefore tempting us to buy it, hoping that it is the right combination.
Therefore, movies always have soundtracks, so that each song will remind us of that special
moment in the movie. Most of us buy a certain soundtrack because of a certain movie we like,
because of that very special scene.
Most of us have watched romantic movies and own a couple of those compilations of best love songs and will argue that romance can never be felt this way and there is no such thing is synthetic romance. It is impossible to feel romance just by watching a movie or listening to songs. To a certain extent, this is true, but it is only because you did not watched or listened to the right movie or song.
Just like medicine, certain people are allergic to some pills while the same pills works wonder for
some others. In essence, the synthetic romance could only be found in the right film. Watching the wrong film is like eating the wrong medicine, you will not be cured, therefore, certain skills are required to find
the right movie for the virtual romance. Many of us use the trial and error method, that is to keep on watching those new release of romance blockbusters hoping that we can find the right one.
This phenomena could largely explain why the Julia Roberts romantic movies do so well. Apart from the brilliant acting skills and her wonderful smile, the audiences try to seek cure within the movie.
Therefore, for those who have yet to find the cure, don't worry Hollywood, Bollywood and other
movie houses are busy churning out good romantic movies. So be patient. As for me, I have just
found my right dosage on the 14 May 2003.
